BBC ON THIS DAY | 25 | 1981: Brixton riots report blames racial tension About This Site | Text Only 1981: Brixton riots report blames racial tension Last April's riots in Brixton, south London were caused by serious social and economic problems affecting Britain's inner cities, a report has said. Lord Scarman's inquiry into what he called the worst outbreak of disorder in the UK this century also blamed "racial disadvantage that is a fact of British life". The report criticised police and the government, but it said there was no excuse for the violence and praised officers for their conduct during the disorder. Hostile crowd The investigation found the rioting was caused by a spontaneous crowd reaction to police action - rightly or wrongly believed to be harassment of black people - and had not been planned. On the night of 10 April two police officers were attempting to help a black youth who was bleeding from a suspected stab wound when they were approached by a hostile crowd. The local community was already aggravated by "Operation Swamp" - during which large numbers of black youths were stopped and searched - and the confrontation quickly escalated.

Over 300 people were injured, 83 premises and 23 vehicles were damaged during the disturbances, at an estimated cost of �7.5m. Community policing Lord Scarman called for a new emphasis on community policing and said more people from ethnic minorities should be recruited to the force. He also advised the government to end racial disadvantage and tackle the disproportionately high level of unemployment among young black men - as high as 50% in Brixton. The report has been widely welcomed by senior policeman and government ministers. BBC NEWS | Programmes | BBC Parliament | Q&A: The Scarman Report Q&A: The Scarman Report Lord Scarman identified racial disadvantage and inner-city decline On the weekend of the 10-12 April 1981 hundreds of mostly black youths rioted in Brixton, South London. Police were attacked with stones, bricks, iron bars and petrol bombs - this was the first time petrol bombs had been used in mainland Britain. The worst incidences occurred in the evening of Saturday 11 April when 279 policemen and at least 45 members of the public were injured.

Widespread looting took place, 28 buildings were damaged or destroyed by fire as well as police cars and other vehicles. In 1981 Brixton was in economic and social decline. It had a housing shortage despite a falling population, many low income households, one-parent families and high incidences of disability and mental illness. At a time of national recession, unemployment in Brixton stood at 13% and 25.4% for ethnic minorities. Unemployment among black youths was estimated at 55%. Brixton was not alone and street riots occurred in other impoverished inner-city areas of Britain that summer such as Toxteth in Liverpool and Moss Side in Manchester. What were the terms of reference? Lord Scarman was appointed by then Home Secretary William Whitelaw to hold a 'local inquiry' on 14 April. Its terms of reference were "to inquire urgently into the serious disorder in Brixton on 10-12 April 1981 and to report, with the power to make recommendations".

Inquiry staff Philip Mawer, Secretary and Nicholas Montgomery Pott, Assistant Secretary; Ted McCormick and Melissa Grant of the Home Office; Counsel for the Inquiry: Mr R Auld QC, Mr JGM Laws and Mr L Crawford. Who gave evidence? Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (Counsel - Mr J Hazan QC and Mr L Marshall Concern; Council for Community Relations of Lambeth ; London Borough of Lambeth Brixton local community groups and clubs; Brixton Legal Defence Group; What did the report say? Lord Scarman said "complex political, social and economic factors" created a "disposition towards violent protest". He found the disorders were not planned but a spontaneous outburst of built-up resentment sparked by particular incidents. He found loss of confidence and mistrust in the police and their methods of policing. Liason arrangements between police, community and local authority had already collapsed before the disturbances. He recommended concerted efforts to recruit more ethnic minorities into the police force, and changes in training and law enforcement. William Whitelaw visited Brixton before appointing Lord Scarman The problems of racial disadvantage and inner-city decline were highlighted and a more concerted and co-ordinated approach to tackling them was seen as essential.

"Institutional racism" did not exist, he said, pointing instead to "racial disadvantage" and "racial discrimination". His warning was stark: "Urgent action" was needed to prevent racial disadvantage becoming an "endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society". Positive discrimination to tackle racial disadvantage was "a price worth paying". What was the reaction? Some of Lord Scarman's reforms were implemented. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 set out the way police officers were to carry out their duties. It stated specific codes of practices for police procedures and established the rights of people detained by the police for a suspected crime or offence. But the Commission for Racial Equality says his wider social and economic reforms were "seriously out of key" with the political tempo of the times. Lord Scarman later acknowledged he could have been "more outspoken about the necessity of affirmative action to overcome racial disadvantage". brixton riots 1981 | The Peel Blog July 26, 2012 Leave a comment I have written two Blogs so far on the relationship between the Police and the Community. I started with the Brixton Riots of 1981 and what happened.

This can be viewed by clicking this link I continued with examining the report into the cause of the riots that had been written by Lord Scarman. This is a very comprehensive report and to be honest at the time I did not know how big a task it was going to be. For that reason I will be releasing two further Blogs on the Scarman Report that will cover Lord Scarman’s Conclusions and Recommendations to prevent further disorder. In my last Blog I looked at the problems that Lord Scarman had uncovered and this Blog is a continuation of that. Part 2a on the same subject can be found here The section of the Scarman Report that i am now going to cover concerns the faults of the Police and the problems that the Police faced. Police Faults Lord Scarman as a result of evidence heard discovered the following: The hostility within the community was caused by a loss of confidence in the police by significant sections of the community. There were several complaints made against the police, many of which were not acted upon or investigated. There were a number of MP’s who believed that many complaints against the police could be justified. The attitude towards police provided the “tinder ready to blaze into violence” indicating that the signs were there.

Also uncovered was was a loss of confidence and poor attitude gave rise to a serious breakdown in relations between the police and the community – I will be covering this a little more shortly. Police harassment did occur and enabled a myth of police brutality and racism to develop. The Police had many faults and there is no hiding from that fact. The Police however also had some big problems that they needed to overcome which will be covered shortly. We have already heard some of the causes into the riots such as housing and high unemployment and although these issues are outside of police responsibility you will see that the police did fail to adapt their policing approach to the community that they served. The Policing Problem In 1980 the amount of crimes recorded in the Lambeth Borough was 30,805. The Brixton Division was responsible for 10,626 of those crimes. Between 1976 and 1980 Brixton accounted for 35% of all crimes on the Borough, but 49% of all Robbery and Violent Theft offences. The police recognised that there was a problem and that they needed a solution to a growing crime trend.

Robbery and violent crime was on the increase and this can probably be related to high unemployment and people with no or little money. A disproportionate amount of crime was committed by black people. – Remember the video on my first Blog where the now retired Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick (a Sergeant at the time) spoke of the criminality associated with being black? In 1979 the then Commander of the area Commander Adams had launched a very successful community project on the Stockwell Park Estate that did reduce crime and build links. This project however did not last as hostility and suspicion existed between the public and the police. Later in 1979 circumstance outside of Commander Adams control occurred and this helped to push the community further away. Commander Adams was worried about the increase in crime in Brixton and in 1980 he was successful in a bid to obtain more staff from neighbouring areas. This contributed to an increase of police on the streets which caused further tension. Due to increasing crime Commander Adams organised a series of operations on the streets of Brixton by utilising the Special Patrol Group. During these operations crime would reduce but would soon increase again when the operations ended.

These policing operations caused further hostility on the streets and black people felt that they were being “hunted” irrespective of their guilt or innocence. The operations turned older members of the community against the police as they heard stories from younger members of the community. These stories also helped in the breakdown of formal agreements between the police and community leaders. Commander Adams met with local community leaders to discuss a new two way open approach between the police and the community. A Special Patrol Group operation had been planned for a few days time after this meeting however Commander Adams did not tell the community leaders about it due to fears that telling them would reduce its effectiveness. When the operation started the community leaders were far from happy and made the community leaders not trust the police. On the 12th of February 1979 three members of staff from community liaison team were arrested on suspicion of assaulting undercover police. This action lead to an emergency meeting by the Executive Committee of the CCRL which resulted in them withdrawing from the Liaison Committee with the Police. They also withdrew their open offer of the Community Liason Police officers attending their meetings. What followed after this meeting was a series of unofficial community meetings with the police and those community members who had disagreed with the withdrawal action.

In January 1981 the Working Party released a report into the relations between the Police and the Community. This report had been commissioned by the Council and the Met refused to engage in it as they suspected that the report would not be impartial. As it turned out the report was highly critical of the Police and contained quotes such as, “Police are army of occupation” and that SPG ops were “Attack by the SPG on the people of Lambeth”. The report said that the Police would harass working class people and black people in particular. It also criticised stop and search and said that it was a misuse of the law. Other areas such as community projects operated by the police were criticised. Lord Scarman was in no doubt that report worsened the relationship between the police and the community. On the 1st of April 1981 the new Divisional Commander (five months into the job) had a meeting with community leaders to discuss the relaunch of the Liasion Committee however he received a letter agreeing to the relaunch that arrived four days AFTER the disorder had occurred. Swamp 81 – The Build Up Swamp 81 ran between the 6th and 12th of April 1981.

In the immediate days before the operation began a number of warrants had been executed in the Railton Road (The Front Line) and neighbouring streets by officers from the Robbery and Burglary squads. T^his resulted in increased tension however Swamp 81 was still conducted. For the second time community leaders were not informed of the impending operation which caused further upset, however the operation in the time leading o the disorder had lead to a 50% decrease in crime. In this Blog I have covered the faults of the police and the problems they faced. We will all agree that the police did make some very serious but easily avoided mistakes. The next section of the Scarman Report covers his Conclusions and his Recommendations. I feel that these two vital subjects that still have relevance on the policing of today warrant their own Blog post and they will follow in due course. Once again thank you for reading and I hope you found this interesting and informative. July 23, 2012 4 Comments I recently wrote a post on the Brixton Riots of 1981 and I explained that I had chosen this point in time to start with my assessment of the relationships between the Police Service and the Community that we serve.

The previous Blog covered the build up to the Brixton riots and if you have not read that post you can see it by clicking the link Police & Community Relations – Part 1 – The Brixton Riots 1981 Immediately following this very violent event the Government appointed Lord Scarman to conduct a official review into the riots and their causes. Lord Scarman was also empowered with making recommendations in how to prevent further disorder in the future. The Scarman Report was released in November 1981 and made very interesting reading. This report had been compiled following a series of evidence hearings from community members, police officers and other relevant persons. The Scarman Report is far too detailed to cover in one Blog so I have chosen to split it in half. For ease of reading I have split Lord Scarmans findings into headings. The Violence Lord Scarman heard a lot of evidence about the violence and established the following: The riots were the most serious disorder in the history of the Met. During the disorder petrol bombs had been used for the first time ever against police on English soil. Further examination revealed that the petrol bombs had been supplied by white people who supported the cause and were being dished out from places around the neighbourhood.

The people rioting were mainly young black people. There was a reason for that and this will be covered more later in the Blog. The violence was that intense that at times the police could only contain the rioters and were powerless to effectively deal with the violence. The police were only start to deal with the violence when they became heavily reinforced. Following the violence a resident described the Brixton area as looking like the “Aftermath Of An Air Raid”. Lord Scarman then looked at the problems which contributed to the riots and found the following: The Problems The first problem was “oppressive policing over a period of years; and in particular the harassment of young blacks on the streets of Brixton”. He concluded by saying that they were anti police. “The second problem is that the disorders, like so many riots in British history, were a protest against society by people deeply frustrated and deprived who saw in a violent attack upon the forces of law and order their one opportunity of compelling public attention to their grievances There was a multi cultural community in a deprived inner city area where unemployment, especially among young black people is high and hopes are low.

There was a requirement for police to maintain law and order of a diverse community without an understanding of their needs and as such it was impossible to set standards for successful policing. The police needed to understand the social problem first before they could effectively police the problems. Lord Scarman went on to examine the problems in some more depth which is summarised below: Brixton Social Conditions Brixton was home to a number of retail outlets that included many national retail chains and local stores. Hit by recession the Brixton area had suffered a decline in trade. Conditions in Brixton had declined to such a level that redevelopment plans had been discussed and from 1965 onwards plans had been made but not implemented. The hot spot riot areas such as Railton Road and surrounding roads had been considered for complete refurbishment however this decision had been blocked by the then Secretary of State for Environment who favoured a phased refit program. Housing was identified as being a major social condition that effected the people of Brixton and I am not one for statistics but the following is alarming by anyones standards. Housing At the time of the riots there was a shortage of 20,000 homes.

Council figures estimate that there were 12,000 homes that were overcrowded. 1 or more bedrooms in Brixton homes were below the acceptable standards. There were 7,000 homes that were empty which lead to squatting. Figures state that as many as 12,000 homes were declared unfit for purpose by the Local Authority. 8,250 homes lacked one or more basic amenities. Lord Scarman went as far as to say “The physical environment in which the people of Brixton live and the Police have to operate is one marked by decay, and that there are in particular very serious housing problems. The People of Brixton The Borough of Lambeth had a population of around 264,000 which was a reduction of earlier figures as many people had moved away. The typical age group of those that moved away ranged between 25 and 60. This left behind a population that were either younger or older. The Brixton population had a higher number of residents that were of school age and this was higher than the whole of London. There were fewer people who held professional or managerial roles.

There was a “strikingly high” figure of children in local authority care. There were twice the national average of single parent families living in the Borough. There was a higher percentage of people with mental health illnesses and physical or mental handicap. Education Lord Scarman concluded that “Disadvantage in education and employment are the two crucial facets or racial disadvantage”. He also stated that without decent education a person is unlikely to find jobs they aspired to or in fact any job at all. Alot of black people who were concerned about racial disadvantage had the attitude that there was no point in education when it comes to employment as they have no chance due to racial disadvantage. Discrimination Employers had views of black people as they saw them as having a lack of qualifications. They also saw them as bad time keepers, as having a unwillingness to travel, and in some cases as having a poor level of English. Of equal importance it was suggested that it was not only employers who discriminated against black people but other employees within a company or business. It was also said that discrimination existed not only in the employment field but on the street, but in schools too. (My first Blog shows proof of that).

Lord Scarman made several conclusions however at this stage I will be sharing the following ones. I will be honest and tell you that I am still researching this report. I have realised that one Blog will not cover this entire subject hence splitting it into two. The second half will follow in due course. Lord Scarmans Conclusions Social circumstances were very poor however this was not an excuse to riot. Lambeth Council were aware of the social problems and had launched a program to promote equal opportunities and to combat racial disadvantage. In 1978 they had formed a Race Relations Unit who were charged with the mentioned task. Following the riots Lambeth Council had made steps to improve housing allocations. Lambeth Council following the riots had been granted £9 million pounds from Central Government to make improvements to the neighbourhood. The black people tended to reside in deprived areas of the City. Black people were desperate for equality with their white counterparts. Black people were not politically secure. There were no black MP’s or Councillors and this was a problem for the community. I have enjoyed researching this subject so far.

I will be honest and say that I had heard of the riots back in 1981 but it is only until now that I have begun to understand why they happened. I am sure that we will all agree that the Police were a major factor in these riots but were not fully to blame. The Police had no control over housing and education or the fact that the country was in recession, however their policing approach was extremely unfair and in my last Blog a then serving Met Police Constable openly admitted how they would target black people. The Police cannot police without co operation of the public and what I am trying to achieve through this staged Blog is to highlight the importance of how this relationship is. If I had my way then every new Constable, Special and Pcso would have to study the Scarman Report. This report was written back in 1981 but as this Blog progresses you will see that many of the things Scarman spoke about are evident today and it would appear that we in some areas have learned NOTHING! As ever I value your feedback and thank you for reading.

Understanding the riots | Centre for Crime and Justice Studies Understanding the riots John Lea and Simon Hallsworth put the riots into political and historical perspective To make sense of last summer's riots it is important to put them in historical perspective. A comparison with the 1981 riots in Brixton, Liverpool and elsewhere and with the 2001 riots in Bradford and nearby towns reveals two shifts. The concerns of the rioters have shifted from a clear response to manifest injustice – usually at the hands of the police – to a more diffuse expression of generalised rage. Meanwhile the response has shifted from attempts – symbolised by Lord Scarman's report on the Brixton riots of 1981 – to reintegrate the rioters and their communities into what remained of welfare citizenship to a reinforced criminalisation of a dysfunctional population. The backdrop is of course the demise of the Keynesian Welfare State and the harsh realities of neoliberalism. Scarman, already too late... For three days in April 1981 young black men battled the police on the streets of Brixton.

These youngsters were faced with the toxic combination of unemployment, racism, a society which marginalised their political voice and which addressed the symptoms of urban decay with systematic over-policing. The breaking point was exasperation at oppressive use of stop and search, in particular the massive ‘Operation Swamp 81’. Lord Scarman, commissioned by Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw, started from the perspective that policies aimed at integration of the Black community had failed. He understood that the rioters had a particular grievance regarding police behaviour. He recommended the recording of police stops (subsequently part of the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act) and mechanisms of police-community liaison to give the Black community some sort of local voice in policing policy. More generally, he saw the Brixton community as containing a ‘a wealth of voluntary effort and goodwill’ (Scarman, 1981) and argued the state must recognise the ‘long term need to provide useful, gainful employment and suitable educational, recreational and leisure opportunities for young people, especially in the inner city’ (ibid). Scarman was in effect calling for Keynesian state-led investment in the riot-torn inner cities. But he was already out on a limb.

The first Thatcher government had been elected in 1979 and was determined to reduce public spending despite high levels of unemployment. The model for the future was rather the visit to Liverpool by environment secretary Michael Heseltine aiming to attract private investment to urban regeneration. The result was a renewal of the city centre while poor riot-torn areas like Toxteth were largely ignored. Deindustrialisation and private-led urban regeneration were already laying the foundations for the next wave of riots. Bradford and community cohesion The Bradford, Oldham and Burnley riots of 2001 were the fruit. Stretching from May to July they involved sporadic three-way street battles between White and Asian youth and the police. The poor were now fighting each other in communities abandoned by both private capital and the state. The collapse of the Yorkshire textile and steel economies as investment went elsewhere left young Asians facing 40 per cent unemployment and competing with Whites for an ever diminishing local supply of jobs and resources. This was becoming fertile recruiting ground for the far-right on one hand and Islamic extremism on the other. Meanwhile the police were frequently notable by their absence as if these poor communities were simply not worth bothering with.

Each town got a separate report and a ministerial overview chaired by John Denham. The message was by now firmly neoliberal. Scarman's ‘how did we fail to integrate these communities?’ was replaced by ‘how did these communities fail to succeed in local labour markets?’. Whites and Asians needed to develop ‘community cohesion’, become more entrepreneurial and attract new business (Cantle, 2001). New Labour, now in power, had adopted the neoliberal agenda. It was ready to intervene, but not with state-led employment, rather a battery of community renewal and cohesion initiatives came forth. Some good work was done but the fatal flaw in the entire strategy was that private investors were interested in consumer-driven city centre regeneration ring-fenced by CCTV, anti-social behaviour orders and dispersal zones, aimed at excluding the very unemployed youth who needed integrating (Coleman, 2004). Neoliberal economic ‘renewal’ thus magnified social inequalities and drove further cohorts of young people and their communities – cohesive or otherwise – into the low wage insecure jobs and unemployment. Then came the financial tsunami of 2008 and the cuts. August 2011: zero-degree protest Last August's riots were something new.

They included, but spread beyond, areas that had previously experienced riots. Many familiar elements were present – though mercifully not inter-ethnic conflict – yet the order of importance seemed different. The police shooting of Mark Duggan and failure to subsequently communicate with the community was familiar enough. But, as the riots spread, youths battled police often because the latter simply got in the way of occupying the streets and ‘taking stuff’. In four days of rioting – during which police appeared frequently overwhelmed – scores of shops, often high status consumer outlets, were looted, some burnt to the ground. Looting, and creating havoc on the streets, rather than a side-effect of the chaos as in previous riots, was the main activity. ‘We rioted to show the police we could’ was a frequent refrain. Slavoj Žižek (2011) characterised the riots as ‘zero-degree protest, a violent action demanding nothing.’ If previous riots had a specific target or grievance – stop and search, competition for jobs, last summer's riots were the diffuse and generalised rage of a dispossessed population angry at a system that has failed them but with no vision of an alternative.

That is why they are more serious than any that have gone before. Evidence – mainly from police and court data on those arrested – shows the rioters were overwhelmingly young, poor, unemployed, educationally deprived, multi-ethnic and involved in petty crime. But, and this must be worrying to the authorities, 17 per cent (28 per cent in London) of those arrested were students (Home Office, 2011). The nightmare scenario is a link-up between unemployed youth and the global wave of student-led protests against financial greed and privatisation of education. But the government is able, or willing, to do remarkably little. Inquiry into the riots has been kept at arm's length from government. In place of a Scarman or even a Cantle we get fragmentation: the head of Jobcentre Plus running a low key investigation while some local authorities are conducting their own inquiries. The task of systematic investigation has been left to others and thankfully taken up by a consortium led by The Guardian. If the 1981 riots highlighted the crisis of the welfare state, last August's riots highlighted the crisis of its neoliberal successor.

Global financial meltdown has led – wrongly Keynesians argue – to massive cuts in public spending, to which a public inquiry of Scarman stature might recommend a halt or even reversal. Cameron's ‘Big Society’, however, aims to replace much social spending with private and voluntary sector initiatives and hence there has been a concentration on the sorts of issues such agencies could possibly handle: such as individual problem families or gang membership. The problems with this approach are obvious: nationally only 13 per cent (19 per cent in London) of riot arrestees were plausibly gang related (Home Office, 2011). A focus on gangs steers attention away from poverty and rising youth unemployment towards pathological subcultures (Hallsworth and Brotherton, 2011). The lack of anything resembling a ‘national conversation’ about poverty, marginality and the desperate need to create a future for an expanding population of unemployed young people has left the ground clear for a continued emphasis on policing and repression. This is understandable as an immediate response to the mayhem of a riot but it has been prolonged and strengthened such that it now constitutes the main response.

Police tracking and arresting rioters has continued much longer after the event than in previous riots and there have been far more arrests (at the time of writing around 3,000 with many still to come as the police pore over CCTV footage). This is due, not just to the surveillance technology now available but to a political determination to maintain the narrative of ‘mindless criminality’ as the main issue and to prepare for a decade of worsening social deprivation by sending a clear message that urban disorder will be met with heavy policing and exemplary sentences by the courts. Meanwhile the attempt to incorporate welfare and housing agencies into the ‘extended police family’ with threats of benefit reduction and termination of housing tenancies against families with members convicted of rioting seems aimed at achieving what the military call ‘full spectrum dominance’. Neoliberalism, having renounced as irrational any attempt at social reform, falls back on repression, hoping that ‘shock and awe’ inflicted by a joined up security state will be sufficient to contain the anger and rage of a lost generation of young people through the coming years of the worst global economic recession since the 1930s. John Lea is Professor of Criminology, University of Brighton.

Simon Hallsworth is Director of the Centre for Social and Evaluation Research, London Metropolitan University References A new kind of riot? From Brixton 1981 to Tottenham 2011 | UK news | The Guardian A new kind of riot? From Brixton 1981 to Tottenham 2011 Last summer's unrest resembled earlier postwar English riots, but what were the key differences? A glimpse of the future? ... the Brixton riots in 1981. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images Close This article is 5 years old The petrol bombs started flying on a Saturday night, amid rumours over police mistreatment of a local black man. It would be the first in a series of disturbances, as rioting erupted across the capital and parts of Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The riots that began in Brixton in 1981 were in many ways similar to those that blighted England this summer. Both took place while a Conservative prime minister grappled with the effects of global economic downturn and rising unemployment. Both had created a strong sense – for those involved – of unity.

"I was sitting in my brother's house and I smelt fire, I smelt burning," said a 19-year-old man who rioted in Brixton this August. "So we left the house, went up to Brixton. The first person that we talked to was some old rasta man on some walking stick who was in the last riots, directing people where to go, saying: 'Yeah, everyone hook up as one.' A union thing, wasn't it? Go fight the government." The English riots of 2011 can certainly lay claim to being the biggest civil disorder in a generation. But to what extent were the August riots really that different from civil unrest in previous decades? The Guardian and London School of Economics joint inquiry into the August disturbances, involving 270 interviews with rioters, helps place the summer disorder in context. One key difference was speed. In August, disturbances spread across England in just four nights, fuelled in part by the BlackBerry messaging service that enabled flashmobs to congregate at prearranged locations.

In 1981, by contrast, it was three months after Brixton before riots broke out in Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham, although they then spread across five cities in a week. The rush to blame technology, however, is nothing new . The government mistakenly blamed social media such as Twitter and Facebook for the "viral" spread of the August 2011 riots. During the LA riots, rolling TV coverage was the scapegoat, while riots in France in 2005 were partly explained by reference to young people communicating via text message, email and blogs. Even in 1981 there were scare stories that, in Manchester and London, rioters were communicating using "£10 radios". An undoubtedly significant technological development has been the rise of CCTV. Although used in the 1970s and 1980s by the police, CCTV was initially confined primarily to targeting football hooligans and political demonstrators. Its spread across the UK's urban landscape only really occurred in the 1990s, but has now reached such a scale that much of what occurred in the August riots was caught on film.

Its impact can be seen most dramatically in many of the 4,000 arrests: on Wednesday, Junior Saunders, a 36-year-old from Hackney, was given a five-year sentence – the harshest to be handed down to any rioter – after being captured on CCTV during the rioting. Cameras first caught Saunders riding through Hackney on his bike; later he was spotted wearing the same beach shorts, hooded top and sunglasses attacking police vehicles, throwing stepladders at police, breaking into a lorry, burgling an optician's and attacking a branch of Tesco with a shovel. Race and police If there is an overriding theme than runs like a thread through most of the riots in postwar Britain, it is undoubtedly race. Some of the earliest postwar disturbances, in Nottingham and Notting Hill, London in the summer of 1958, were widely described as "race riots". The Institute of Race Relations described a history of conflict in Nottingham in the late 1950s between white and recently arrived black residents, which had been going on for at least a year by the time the riot occurred.

Newspapers covering the second and third days of rioting in Notting Hill reported violence so serious that all available police reserves were on duty or standing by and that dozens of arrests were made when a large crowd had gathered to join in racist chanting. Such direct racial confrontation has been relatively uncommon; in recent times perhaps the closest parallel to those 1950s events were the disturbances that occurred in the north of England in mid-2001. There, initially in Oldham, and then in Burnley, there was significant conflict between local Asian and white youths. Subsequent disturbances in Bradford occurred after the National Front announced plans to march in the city, sparking confrontations between local Pakistani youth and white extremists. By contrast, the major disturbances of the 1980s, beginning in St Paul's in Bristol in 1980, and then, in 1981, proceeding via Brixton, Handsworth in Birmingham, Chapeltown in Leeds, Moss Side in Manchester and Toxteth in Liverpool, and picking up four years later in Handsworth, Brixton and Broadwater Farm in Tottenham, tended to coalesce around conflict with the police, although race was at the heart of the grievances.

Sheldon Thomas, a gang expert and youth worker who was involved in Brixton in 1981, remembers the problems of isolation and unemployment that his generation of young black people faced. These were compounded, he said, by having to "cope with a racist police force who had the power to stop and search us at will". "[With] beatings, deaths in police custody … Most young black boys felt completely persecuted," Thomas said. For many who were involved, said Ros Griffiths, a community leader in Brixton, the 1981 riots "were fundamentally about race". "In Brixton we called the riots an uprising," she said. On the other hand, Griffiths said: "The riots that took place in August [2011] were not about race but about a growing underclass in our inner cities that feels excluded, isolated and locked out of mainstream society." Thomas agrees, arguing that what has really changed in the past 30 years is that, while many young black people continue to feel the same way as his generation had in 1981, "now that feeling is shared by white working-class people".

Although rioters interviewed by the Guardian/LSE often said their mistreatment, particularly at the hands of police, was a consequence of race, they were mostly adamant the disturbances were not race riots. If anything, many saw the disorder as a coming together of ethnically disparate groups who loosely shared a sense of injustice. "I can understand, as a black man who grew up with racism, how a lot of white working-class people feel today," said Thomas. "These politicians have no interest in the white man in Salford or the black man in Brixton." Poverty To understand the 2011 riots one needs to look back not just to Brixton, Handsworth and Toxteth in the 1980s, but also to the outbreaks that occurred in the early 1990s in places like Oxford, Cardiff and Tyneside. There the arson, looting and attacks on the police primarily involved white youth in suburban, working-class estates. All the accounts of these disturbances at the time used words like poverty, deprivation and isolation. All of the estates involved had dramatically high levels of youth unemployment. The August rioters were ethnically mixed, but most shared an experience of economic deprivation.

Of the rioters interviewed in the Guardian/LSE study who were of working age and not in education, 59% were unemployed. Analysis of more than 1,000 court records held by the Guardian suggests 59% of rioters came from the most deprived 20% of areas in the UK. Almost all of the major outbreaks of civil disorder of the past 30 years have involved looting as well as attacks on property and on the police. In the 1981 Brixton riot, approximately 30 premises were burned, and over 100 damaged and looted. But with approximately 2,500 shops and businesses looted, and insurance claims in London alone likely to reach £300m, the scale of the looting in August this year, and the fact that some of the disturbances seem primarily to have involved looting rather than other forms of protest or criminality, separates them from previous experiences. This may reflect the rise of a new culture of consumption.

Many of those interviewed by the Guardian/LSE spoke about the status attributed to brand items, admitting they saw August's perceived lawlessness as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to acquire consumer goods they could not ordinarily afford . As one 15-year-girl who looted in south London put it: "People with the Ralph, the Gucci, the Nike, the trainers, the Air Forces [Nike Air Force 1 trainers], it's all the style, just everyone wants it. If you don't have it you're just going to look like an idiot. Like, that's how we see it, you just look like an idiot. It's a fashion thing." Inquiries What the recent English riots do have in common with most previous examples of significant civil disorder is the absence of a major official inquiry. In 1958, the home secretary, R A Butler, turned down requests for a major inquiry after the Nottingham and Notting Hill riots. Questioned in the House of Commons, he said had spoken with the Metropolitan police commissioner and was satisfied that "everything possible was being done". In the aftermath of August's riots, David Cameron said: "This was not political protest or a riot about protest about politics.

It was common or garden thieving, robbing and looting. And we don't need an inquiry to tell us that." The riots in Moss Side, Handsworth, Toxteth, St Paul's and Broadwater Farm were all investigated in some detail, but while these inquiries were important in their local context, and one or two had larger reach, few really permeated national debates and general public consciousness. The exception, and the one inquiry that stands out above all others, is that by Lord Justice Scarman into the Brixton riots in 1981. Why? Part of the reason lies with Scarman himself, a man described by the former lord chief justice Lord Woolf as "a lawyer and a judge who had a remarkable insight into human nature and an exceptional sensitivity to the needs of a healthy society". But it was the independence and authority of Scarman's report that was key. Hard-hitting, it was critical of the Metropolitan police and also took the opportunity to focus in detail on both racial disadvantage and the very high levels of unemployment experienced by Brixton residents at that time. Neither of these features owas guaranteed to endear Scarman's report to the government.

Perhaps the memory of Scarman has been a factor in the official resistance to the establishment of anything similar this year. After Cameron's dismissal of the need for an inquiry led to pressure from the Liberal Democrats and Labour, it was agreed that a riots communities and victims' panel would be established under the chairmanship of Darra Singh. The inquiry's terms of reference are quite narrow and its findings have been fairly low-key; the suspicion must be that there is a desire to avoid having too much independent scrutiny of such major events. This is certainly the view of Ted Cantle, the author of the report into the 2001 disturbances. Although he believes that Singh's initial report into the victims of the riots has been strong, in his view establishments have a reason to avoid scrutiny. "The government is always very reluctant to set up reviews because they may find uncomfortable conclusions," he said. Prof Gus John, who led the Moss Side Defence Committee that criticised the Hytner report into the 1981 Moss Side riots, says "key lessons will be missed" if the government fails to set up a proper inquiry.

Without one, "the focus will remain on criminals and their victims, and on the need for more robust, militarised policing and harsher punishments for rioters and looters".

Additional Reporting: Will Wainewright, Ben Ferguson and Yemisi Adegoke Despite politicians' claims, most rioters did not use Twitter, but it played an important role for the media and during the clean-up Published: 7 Dec 2011 From a tiger roaming Primrose Hill to the London Eye burning, startling reports spread fast on Twitter with the ease of a click Published: 7 Dec 2011 The free, secure BBM service was an easy way to share information on where riots were and what police were doing Published: 7 Dec 2011 The explanations rioters gave for the disturbances ending were as diverse as those they gave for getting involved Published: 9 Dec 2011 Brixton Riots (April 10-12, 1981) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed Brixton Riots (April 10-12, 1981) Image Ownership: Public Domain The Brixton Riots of April 10-12, 1981, described as the first serious riots of the 20th century in England , were the first large scale racial confrontations between black British youth

 and white British police.

The rioting was sparked by antagonism between black youths and the police. Since World War Two , the area of Brixton, situated in the borough of Lambeth, London, England and heavily populated by West Indian and East Indian immigrants, had been in decline; in 1981 a third of the housing in Lambeth was of a poor standard and the unemployment rate was high. Sixty-five percent of the unemployed were black. A police operation to address the crime rate in Brixton, one of the highest in London, resulted in a significant number of black youths being stopped and searched. During the five days in early April leading up to the riots there were 943 stop and searches in Brixton infuriating the local population and creating tensions between white police officers and youths. On Friday April 10, 1981, two police officers were attempting to help an injured young black man in their car when a group of group of young black men, misinterpreting the officers’ actions as harassment, attacked the vehicle. The crowd of youths grew larger and more hostile, throwing bottles through police vehicles’ windscreens. The incident seemingly ended when police reinforcements arrived.

The build-up of police patrols in the area continued through the rest of the night and by Saturday afternoon, there were no less the 84 police officers patrolling the streets of Brixton, as well as three police vans driving round the area. The heavy police presence heightened tensions in the area. At 4:45pm on Saturday, April 11, two police officers searched and arrested a young black taxi driver, taking him away. Missiles were thrown at the police van as it left. This led to more police reinforcements and led to the worst day of the rioting. The rioters were mostly young black men but they were now joined by young whites. Looting began, police vans were overturned and bricks, bottles, and petrol bombs were thrown, setting fire to both police and private cars. There were also a number of attacks on retail and commercial premises and bars. On both Friday and Saturday, the police deployed dogs to quell the rioters.

During nearly six hours of violence, 82 people were arrested, 279 police officers and at least 45 members of the public were injured, 61 private vehicles and 56 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed and 145 businesses were damaged, 28 of them by fire. Sunday brought further disturbances, although the attacks on the police were generally less intense. One hundred sixty five people were arrested, 122 police officers and three members of the public were reported injured, and 61 police vehicles and 26 other vehicles were damaged or destroyed. Overall, 7,000 police officers had been involved in quelling the disturbances arresting a total of 282 people, most of whom were black. Following the riots, the British government announced an inquiry into the disturbances led by Lord Leslie George Scarman. Lord Scarman's report, issued on November 25, 1981, placed the Brixton riots into the context of racial disadvantage faced by young blacks. It also blamed the police for escalating the tensions and called on law enforcement agencies to in the future consult and cooperate with the Brixton community.

Sources: Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999); John Benyon, ed., Scarman and after : essays reflecting on Lord Scarman's Report, the Riots, and Their Aftermath (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984); "Mr. Whitelaw expected to announce inquiry into Brixton riots today,” The (London) Times, Monday, Apr 13, 1981; pg. 1; Lord Leslie George Scarman, "Scarman on Brixton 1/ The key passages on policing, social order and the riots,” The (London) Times, Thursday, Nov 26, 1981; pg. 4; "How Smoldering tension erupted to set Brixton aflame," The Guardian, April 13, 1981, #history-byline ; 1981 The Brixton riots, .

Contributor(s): Part 2b – Police and Community Relations (Scarman Report cont) | The Peel Blog Part 2b – Police and Community Relations (Scarman Report cont) July 26, 2012 Leave a comment I have written two Blogs so far on the relationship between the Police and the Community. I started with the Brixton Riots of 1981 and what happened. This can be viewed by clicking this link I continued with examining the report into the cause of the riots that had been written by Lord Scarman. This is a very comprehensive report and to be honest at the time I did not know how big a task it was going to be. For that reason I will be releasing two further Blogs on the Scarman Report that will cover Lord Scarman’s Conclusions and Recommendations to prevent further disorder. In my last Blog I looked at the problems that Lord Scarman had uncovered and this Blog is a continuation of that. Part 2a on the same subject can be found here The section of the Scarman Report that i am now going to cover concerns the faults of the Police and the problems that the Police faced.

Police Faults Lord Scarman as a result of evidence heard discovered the following: The hostility within the community was caused by a loss of confidence in the police by significant sections of the community. There were several complaints made against the police, many of which were not acted upon or investigated. There were a number of MP’s who believed that many complaints against the police could be justified. The attitude towards police provided the “tinder ready to blaze into violence” indicating that the signs were there. Also uncovered was was a loss of confidence and poor attitude gave rise to a serious breakdown in relations between the police and the community – I will be covering this a little more shortly. Police harassment did occur and enabled a myth of police brutality and racism to develop. The Police had many faults and there is no hiding from that fact. The Police however also had some big problems that they needed to overcome which will be covered shortly. We have already heard some of the causes into the riots such as housing and high unemployment and although these issues are outside of police responsibility you will see that the police did fail to adapt their policing approach to the community that they served.

The Policing Problem In 1980 the amount of crimes recorded in the Lambeth Borough was 30,805. The Brixton Division was responsible for 10,626 of those crimes. Between 1976 and 1980 Brixton accounted for 35% of all crimes on the Borough, but 49% of all Robbery and Violent Theft offences. The police recognised that there was a problem and that they needed a solution to a growing crime trend. Robbery and violent crime was on the increase and this can probably be related to high unemployment and people with no or little money. A disproportionate amount of crime was committed by black people. – Remember the video on my first Blog where the now retired Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick (a Sergeant at the time) spoke of the criminality associated with being black? In 1979 the then Commander of the area Commander Adams had launched a very successful community project on the Stockwell Park Estate that did reduce crime and build links. This project however did not last as hostility and suspicion existed between the public and the police.

Later in 1979 circumstance outside of Commander Adams control occurred and this helped to push the community further away. Commander Adams was worried about the increase in crime in Brixton and in 1980 he was successful in a bid to obtain more staff from neighbouring areas. This contributed to an increase of police on the streets which caused further tension. Due to increasing crime Commander Adams organised a series of operations on the streets of Brixton by utilising the Special Patrol Group. During these operations crime would reduce but would soon increase again when the operations ended. These policing operations caused further hostility on the streets and black people felt that they were being “hunted” irrespective of their guilt or innocence. The operations turned older members of the community against the police as they heard stories from younger members of the community. These stories also helped in the breakdown of formal agreements between the police and community leaders. Commander Adams met with local community leaders to discuss a new two way open approach between the police and the community. A Special Patrol Group operation had been planned for a few days time after this meeting however Commander Adams did not tell the community leaders about it due to fears that telling them would reduce its effectiveness.

When the operation started the community leaders were far from happy and made the community leaders not trust the police. On the 12th of February 1979 three members of staff from community liaison team were arrested on suspicion of assaulting undercover police. This action lead to an emergency meeting by the Executive Committee of the CCRL which resulted in them withdrawing from the Liaison Committee with the Police. They also withdrew their open offer of the Community Liason Police officers attending their meetings. What followed after this meeting was a series of unofficial community meetings with the police and those community members who had disagreed with the withdrawal action. In January 1981 the Working Party released a report into the relations between the Police and the Community. This report had been commissioned by the Council and the Met refused to engage in it as they suspected that the report would not be impartial. As it turned out the report was highly critical of the Police and contained quotes such as, “Police are army of occupation” and that SPG ops were “Attack by the SPG on the people of Lambeth”. The report said that the Police would harass working class people and black people in particular. It also criticised stop and search and said that it was a misuse of the law.

Other areas such as community projects operated by the police were criticised. Lord Scarman was in no doubt that report worsened the relationship between the police and the community. On the 1st of April 1981 the new Divisional Commander (five months into the job) had a meeting with community leaders to discuss the relaunch of the Liasion Committee however he received a letter agreeing to the relaunch that arrived four days AFTER the disorder had occurred. Swamp 81 – The Build Up Swamp 81 ran between the 6th and 12th of April 1981. In the immediate days before the operation began a number of warrants had been executed in the Railton Road (The Front Line) and neighbouring streets by officers from the Robbery and Burglary squads. T^his resulted in increased tension however Swamp 81 was still conducted. For the second time community leaders were not informed of the impending operation which caused further upset, however the operation in the time leading o the disorder had lead to a 50% decrease in crime. In this Blog I have covered the faults of the police and the problems they faced. We will all agree that the police did make some very serious but easily avoided mistakes.

The next section of the Scarman Report covers his Conclusions and his Recommendations. I feel that these two vital subjects that still have relevance on the policing of today warrant their own Blog post and they will follow in due course. Once again thank you for reading and I hope you found this interesting and informative. Share this: Oral Histories Oral Histories 1980s Scarman Report Blames Racial Tensions for Brixton Riots Following the Brixton disturbances in April, Lord Scarman was appointed by then Home Secretary William Whitelaw to 'inquire urgently into the serious disorder in Brixton on 10-12 April 1981 and to report, with the power to make recommendations'. Lord Scarman found that the riots in Brixton, said to have involved over 5,000 people, had not been planned but were spontaneous outbursts resulting from built-up resentment and tensions. He made a number of recommendations to the police force, including efforts to recruit more ethnic minorities into the police force and changes in training and law enforcement. He stressed the importance of tackling racial disadvantage and racial discrimination.

The inquiry recommended 'urgent action' to ensure that racial disadvantage did not become an 'endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society'. Scarman's inquiry was given added urgency by the rioting which flared up across the country in July of the same year and the scope of the inquiry was widened to include Southall, in London, Birmingham, Toxteth in Liverpool and Manchester. The report was released on 25 November 1981 and was generally well received by senior police officers and government ministers. Following the Scarman inquiry’s recommendations, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 specified the powers of the police in England and Wales in combating crime and set out codes of practice for police. The Scarman inquiry influenced many measures intended to improve trust and understanding between the police and ethnic minority communities.

Runnymede Publications: Lord Scarman dies, aged 93 | The Times Lord Scarman dies, aged 93 By Times Online Published at 12:00AM, December 9 2004 Lord Scarman, the distinguished judge and lawyer whose landmark report into the 1981 Brixton riots changed the way British police treated ethnic minorities, has died aged 93. The peer passed away peacefully yesterday evening. His nephew, George Ritchie, said: “He will be sadly, greatly missed.” Lord Scarman enjoyed a distinguished judicial career, serving as chairman of the Law Commission during its first seven years. He also chaired the 1969 tribunal set up to investigate civil disturbances in Northern Ireland. But he was best known for his inquiry into the the race riots that started in Brixton, South London, and swept Subscribe now

Question: Which Lord was commissioned to report into the 1981 Brixton Riots?
Answer: Scarman